I Raised the Northern Grand Duke as a Farmer Behind My Father’s Back Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Chapter 3 — Purification

“……Uh, um.”

An awkward silence fell.

“So…… h-hello……?”

“Not hello.”

Grand Duke Basil looked down at me with a terrifying expression.

Then he growled in a low voice.

“You dared turn one of my subordinates into your lackey and come all the way here?”

“W-we’re allies……”

Why now?!

Cold sweat trickled down my back.

When did he even get here?

I hadn’t sensed him at all!

His broad chest rose and fell once.

Then he turned without hesitation.

“……Still, I’m glad I caught you before something happened. Come with me. I’ll make today the first day you get properly scolded by the Grand Duke.”

“N-nooo! I-I still—!”

“You…… won’t stay still, will you? Just because you look kind of cute, you think you can get away with everything?”

“……?”

Wait.

Did His Grace just call me cute?

Basil tilted his head as though he didn’t understand his own words either.

“Did my tongue develop a mind of its own?”

Ignoring him, I struggled wildly in his arms.

[Haniel, Slightly Flowing with Divine Power (x16)]

• Divine power flows around your body for a limited time. (13:20)

“Your Graaaace, wait! I still have something I need to do!”

“This won’t do. Camilla.”

“Yes.”

What?!

Butler Camilla was here too?!

“Take the bread out of her bag.”

“Yes.”

Only then did I notice that Butler Camilla was holding the bag I had neatly left in the distance like a hostage.

“Waaah! That’s Hani’s bread!”

“Yeah. Now it’s Basil’s bread. Stop struggling.”

“Waaah!”

He pulled me more tightly against him.

Then—

• Divine power flows around your body for a limited time. (00:40)

The remaining time suddenly plummeted.

F-forty seconds?! Why?!

[Help: All powers have strengths and weaknesses.]

[Divine power and mana are poorly compatible.]

In other words, Grand Duke Basil’s mana was so overwhelmingly powerful that my divine power was rapidly losing strength!

Power struggle—

total failure!

“Waaah, let me go!”

What do I do?!

At this rate, I was just going to become someone who wasted sixteen Divine Power Stickers!

“I-I really can purify it!”

“……What?”

“I can use divine pow—”

Then—

BOOOOOOOM!!

“……!!”

The earth shook with an enormous explosion.

From far away, Sir Luden’s urgent voice rang out.

“Your Grace! Monsters! They broke through the traps!”

“……Hah. I knew something like this would happen.”

Basil’s brow furrowed deeply.

At the same time, an ominous tremor rolled through the ground.

The strength in his arm loosened.

I didn’t miss my chance.

“……! You damn brat!”

“I’m not You Damn Brat……”

“Camilla! Grab her!”

“I’m Haniel!”

No time!

I escaped from Basil’s arms.

Then, first things first—

I dashed straight toward the pillar and wrapped both arms tightly around it.

Saaaaaaaaah—!

White light exploded outward.

It was so bright I could barely keep my eyes open.

The pillar Dad had built.

Dad’s traces.

If I could purify all the Mad Dragon’s evil energy trapped inside this pillar……

would I someday be able to purify Dad’s divine power too?

I closed my eyes.

Dad, I’m sorry.

For some reason, tears threatened to spill out.

Hani was too little and too useless, so you were the only one who suffered, right?

Not in this life.

This time, I’m definitely going to help you!

I drew out the life force stored within my heart and used it to amplify the divine power.

“……!”

He whipped around.

His beautiful silver hair, neatly tied back, scattered violently.

What was that?

“Sir Dante?”

Dantelion clenched his teeth.

My eye……

He carefully covered his right eye with his left hand.

His lieutenant looked at him in confusion, but Dantelion had no attention to spare.

His heart was pounding wildly.

The stabbing pain in his eye would not subside.

Why?

What was happening?

He felt like an animal sensing danger.

Or……

as if he were about to lose something precious forever.

“Sir? What’s wrong all of a sudden?”

“……Nothing.”

He answered in a cracked voice.

“It’s nothing.”

He quickly returned to the neat, composed image of a holy knight.

But his heart continued pounding.

The physical pain caused by his corrupted divine power was one thing.

But—

What……

was this anxiety?

“Please.”

This feeling that made him want to beg.

To kneel.

To plead.

To betray everything in the end.

What was it?

“……Continue your report.”

“Yes. Then…… as I mentioned earlier, after questioning the residents of District Z, there are currently three people whose whereabouts remain unknown……”

The voice reached him as though through water.

Reality felt strangely distant.

As though he were living inside a dream.

RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE!

Everything shook.

“Y-Your Grace!”

Camilla pointed in panic toward where Haniel had run.

Brilliant white light was bursting from one of the pillars.

It was difficult even to look directly at it.

“The baby……!”

“What are you standing around for?! Do you want to die?!”

Basil shouted harshly.

ROAAAAAR!

A hidden monster rose to its feet.

Camilla immediately regained her composure and took a fighting stance.

Blackened hidden weapons coated in poison sprang from all over the formerly neat butler’s body.

Basil tried to run toward the pillar Haniel had reached.

But another monster blocked his path.

Perhaps because this was the Mad Dragon’s grave—

absurdly powerful monsters sometimes appeared here.

A beast as large as a house charged at terrifying speed.

But—

SHRAAAAK!

Against Basil’s sword, it was nothing more than an insect.

What happened to the brat?

He couldn’t see her through the white light.

But if she had gotten that close to a pillar containing the Mad Dragon’s poisonous energy……

that weak, tiny thing was already—

Dead again.

His teeth ground together.

Another monster lunged from the side.

As he swung his sword with a rigid expression, blood streamed from his clenched fist.

Another one died right in front of me.

This was exactly why he hated keeping young and weak things close.

Faces from the battlefield flashed through his mind.

Countless comrades who had fallen.

Connections he had failed to protect.

Just die, Basil, you bastard.

You can’t even save one miserable territory.

Can’t even protect one tiny kid!

“Damn it!”

BOOM!

He drove his sword into the ground.

The surrounding area was already devastated.

Then Luden’s horrified voice came from behind.

“Your Grace! T-the pillar—!”

Basil’s head snapped up.

“The seal on the pillar is opening!”

Impossible.

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!

One of the chains wrapped around the Mad Dragon began noisily retracting.

It was the chain binding the dragon’s tail.

“……”

In a fraction of a second—

Basil finished calculating.

His voice became colder than ever.

“Luden. Camilla. Get down the mountain. Take the others and leave the North immediately. I’ll somehow bring the brat back.”

“We can’t—”

“Do as I say!”

At that exact moment, Luden shouted in shock.

“Y-Your Grace! Lady Camilla! Look! The evil energy……!”

Black energy burst upward.

Were they already too late?

Basil ground his teeth.

“The Mad Dragon’s m-mana!”

That scorching, contaminated mana—

the dragon’s curse—

was about to engulf this place……

“It’s…… being purified?”

……What?

“Th-the purified mana……”

“……”

“It’s flowing?!”

Huh?

Basil blinked blankly.

Then the earth began to tremble beneath his feet.

Almost like……

a beast waking from an ancient sleep and stretching.

The dragon veins……

The pathways of dragon mana spread throughout the entire North like a spiderweb—

were activating.

“What the hell is this……”

Basil’s eyes widened.

At that moment, the blinding light gradually faded.

And then……

“Huuuuuuung……”

Haniel, who had been hugging the pillar tightly, slowly slid down to the ground.

“Oh, our filthy little baby!”

“Brat!”

“Uuugh……”

Haniel landed hard on her butt.

She blinked a few times.

Then—

“Woooow! It worked!”

She jumped back up and started bouncing around.

“Waaaah! I did it! The snow’s going to stop now! The sun will come out tomorrow!”

For a moment, all three adults forgot how to speak.

Basil moved first.

With an incredibly stiff expression, he grabbed Haniel’s shoulders and turned her toward him.

“You……”

“Your Grace! I can actually use divine power!”

“What?”

“So I purified the pillar! Like, yap! and then whoosh! Wow, it really worked! The dragon vein is open now, right?”

Rrrrrrumble—

The earth was slowly awakening.

The dragon veins writhed beneath it.

The heat unique to the Mad Dragon surged upward from the ground, strong enough to alter the climate.

The dark clouds covering the sky began to slowly disperse.

“I helped!!!”

The child’s expression was strangely bright.

For some reason, Basil couldn’t say anything.

Hehe.

Haniel looked down at her hands.

The sensation of using divine power was still vivid.

I erased Dad’s seal carved into the pillar and covered the pillar with my own divine power.

The moment she removed the seal—

the Mad Dragon’s evil energy surged out as though it had been waiting.

The other pillars remained intact, so there was only one exit available for the unleashed corruption:

the pillar Haniel was holding.

Black energy rushed toward her.

At that exact moment, Haniel amplified the divine power.

Saaaaaaaaah—!

Using the life force stored inside her heart.

Humans possessed two kinds of power.

The power held in the core—

mana or divine power.

And the life force held within the heart.

Ordinary people lived using however much power they possessed in their core.

Life force, by definition, was directly tied to life itself.

So Haniel had never heard of anyone deliberately using it.

But Haniel had been born without a core.

Perhaps because of that—

I’ve always been able to control my life force however I want!

The divine power amplified by consuming Haniel’s life force raced through the pillar.

It devoured every trace of the black poison charging toward her.

It was an exceptionally clean purification.

At this level…… I think I used about three months’ worth.

Haniel blinked.

But……

why did the top of her head feel so prickly?

She looked up at Basil, whose eyes were burning as he stared at her.

Is he…… angry?

Why?

This helped the North!

“What exactly did you just do?”

His voice was low.

“Ah, well. Actually, I……”

Then Haniel suddenly covered her mouth.

“……!”

A cough burst out without warning.

Cough!

When she reflexively covered her mouth, her hand came away covered in black blood.

Blood also began streaming from her nose.